News

Mount students, alumni serve community

Mark Botta teaches a Pine Tree Elementary student about place
values.

Mark Botta of Chester, N.Y. recently took the children of Pine
Tree Elementary School in Monroe, N.Y. on a trip down “Even and Odd
Street,” where they had a blast learning place values.

Botta was one of more than 30 Mount Saint Mary College
pre-service educators who treated 300 eager children and their
families to fun mathematics activities. He has also served his
community outside of the classroom as a volunteer firefighter with
the Chester Fire Department since the age of 16. “It’s a good
feeling to help out somebody in need,” he said.

The latest issue of Mount Saint Mary College Magazine, online
now, features Botta, his stellar classmates, and accomplished
alumni aiding their communities.

Maxine Lindsay-Shillingford’s success story began about 1,600
miles away from the Mount, in Jamaica, West Indies. She was drawn
to nursing from childhood, she said.

Nurses in her hometown “had the ultimate respect of the
community,” she explained. “I would admire them. They personified
elegance, professionalism and class.”

After graduating from the Mount in 1998, Capt. Shillingford
became a U.S. Army nurse, currently assigned to a combat support
hospital’s intensive care unit. As a civilian, Shillingford is
administrative nurse manager for the Department of Veterans Affairs
Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., where she oversees the daily
operations and management of the emergency department.

Shillingford is in good company. Some 37 percent of Mount
students are preparing for careers in healthcare. The college
recently launched its new physician assistant program (pending
Accreditation-Provisional).